The workshop will be devoted to memory and difficult common history. The event will be attended by four representatives of the Cologne-based Federal Association for Information and Consultation to Victims of National Socialism (BUNDESVERBAND INFORMATION & BERATUNG FÜR NS-VERFOLGTE) as well as volunteers and teachers (16 persons in total) assigned by the Volunteer Centre in Zamość. Those teachers and volunteers work with young people and victims of the Third Reich on a daily basis. The meeting is aimed at: exchanging experiences, working out effective methods of extracurricular education which would help commemorate the fate of victims of Nazism, and finding the answers to the following questions:

How to teach young people about the Second World War history at a moment when the eye witnesses of those events are dying out?

How could the Poles and the Germans deal with their common wartime memories which continue to poison the relations between the two countries?

The topics of the workshop modules are as follows: “Literature as a medium for memory,” “Film as an educational tool,” “The pedagogics of World War II memorials,” Awkward questions as a challenge”. In addition, there will be talks and a meeting with witnesses to history, beneficiaries of the project who have been benefiting from the offer prepared for them by the Volunteer Centre in Zamość since 2009. The VCZ’s offer may be encapsulated in four words: help, memory, integration and motivation. The workshop will take place on 22−24 September.